The headline says otherwise. Har, har, you read the article. LOLZ@U, N00B!! I did not RTFA! I only read the Slashdot summary. I know that's still reading too much though.:-)
Not that it really matters what Sun thinks about their F/OSS filesystem that anyone can download, modify or incorporate into their OS, but they are excited about Apple's adoption of ZFS, and have been contributing resources to the 'ZFS for OS X' project. It was widely rumored that ZFS would at least be an option in the shipping version of Leopard, if not the default filesystem. Someone over at Sun was even crowing about this a few months before Leopard was released.
I would have to say that for a 15-year-old to understand why one would choose vinyl over digital either has more to do with trying to be "retro" and impress his friends
No doubt about that. I'm sure a lot of kids today get into vinyl for the retro/geek chic/"indie cool" factor. Heck, that's *part* of the reason I started buying and collecting vinyl about 15 years ago. (I do like the sound of vinyl vs. CDs/MP3s, but don't want to enter the flamewar of which is "better.") I still buy and enjoy vinyl, but can't deny that I mostly listen to music a) on my Mac mini hooked into my home entertainment center; b) on my iPod; and c) on my car stereo that plays AACs and MP3s on CD-R.
Reading TFA, I see the 15-year-old in question is from the St. Louis, MO, area. No doubt his vinyl fascination has been fueled by having a good record store to shop at like Vintage Vinyl. I posted on the vinyl-vs-CD/MP3 discussion the last time this was on Slashdot, but let me add this time that actually having a good store to go to, that stocks both new and quality used vinyl, adds a lot of fun to being a vinyl aficionado. And, yet again, vinyl never went away and it's never going to. It will only see dips and spikes in popularity.
"...many younger workers expect to get an office immediately or be paid at a rate higher than entry level."
And these young IT workers have probably seen, memorized and worshiped Office Space. Did they really expect anything different because they're so smart and have their shiny Microsoft certificates?
I've worked IT a long time and recently left the age range mentioned in TFA (18-31), but I've also lived in reality a long time. Getting fat pay, nice working accommodations and other perks can happen for (relatively) inexperienced workers, but it's not the norm. Just like most jobs in the world, you generally have to work your way up to that level.
Yes, I was assuming the original Bondi Blue iMac keyboard was going to be on this list. Damn near worst keyboard I've ever used. They mention it on the first slide, but somehow it didn't make the list.
Also, if slashdot would follow redirects on links and display the final destination domain after the link, that would be great.
Agreed, that would be neat, but my personal policy is that if the link goes to tinyurl or snipurl, then I'm just going to pass. No need to get goatse'd.
I thought iTunes let you redownload stuff a second time when you reauthorized a new computer?
No. No re-downloading at all. A semi-recent development (with iTunes 7.x and up, I believe) is that you can pull purchased music off on an iPod on to another computer. But there is no re-downloading, no matter how you lost your files.
One doesn't have to be a hardware snob to replace a hard drive in an Apple product. They just have to be reasonably competent and print out the guide for their machine at iFixit.
It seems somebody who is technically inclined (i.e., writing source code for something) would have the skills to follow instructions, use torx screwdrivers and open a case.
In response to the tag "whynotopenbsd," I, for one, would love to see *BSD or Linux make some big inroads to the US government like this. Yes, us slashgeeks know that Open Office, GIMP, etc., can replace big name software.
But in the end, it's a lot easier sell to a different operating system that runs the big name software already. First, let's reduce the reliance on M$ software, then work towards getting F/OSS into big time use. OS X is a nice middleman in between the Evil Empire and software freedom.
No doubt CDs are compressed, and not the ideal format. Especially if you listen to older albums recorded before the CD era; listen to music with a lot of fuzzy-feedback guitar (a lot of the white noise disappears on CD vs. vinyl); and the loudness war has rendered most new CDs (and newly "re-mastered" CDs of older albums) unlistenable.
Still, there are people who supported said stores for years anyhow, myself among them. But mostly I have been going to buy the vinyl version. Others still bought CDs, but the record industry just hasn't kept up for many reasons--the previously mentioned dearth of content, the absolutely crappy compression and clipping on modern CDs, and treating your customers like criminals.
...but in the states, this is very apparent. Not only do we have big outlets like the Virgin Megastore closing down in big cities, but long-standing "mom-and-pop", independent record stores are not making it. I see this with a lot of my old favorite record stores in the midwest, but also some of my favorite stores from when I lived on the left coast, like Aron's Records, an veritable institution I never thought would close down.
Now, it may be easy to blame "downloading," but ask anyone who supported these record stores for years and there's two main reasons: 1) Lack of compelling content these days; and 2) general lack of trust for the record industry. When the old hippie burnout down the street is afraid to buy a CD because it might "have a virus on it," you know the MAFIAA have shot themselves in the foot. Unfortunately, they continue to find ways to make money, while the artists and record-shop owners are the ones being put out of business.
I can't remember the exact spec's (is that a valid contraction? "specs" just seems so dirty). No, it's not a valid contraction. It's not even a valid instance to use a contraction, unless you are trying to say spec is. You are talking about a plural here. However "dirty" it makes you feel, specs is the proper word and spelling you are looking for.
Now I have to figure out how to tell the DRM-tunes from the non-DRM tunes. It was easy when there was a price difference. Ummm...smart playlist?
Kind = iTunes Plus
Or something similar. Just look at the Info panel for an iTunes Plus song vs. one for a regular iTunes purchased track, and create a smart playlist based on the unique identifier.
Mossberg makes some good points. The sad fact is that many of the negative points he brings I blame on Dell, but most uninformed readers will take it as a slight against Linux.
I bought the cheapest Dell laptop with Ubuntu--the Inspiron E1505 "n series." I bought it because I had been waiting for a long time to buy a laptop with Linux pre-loaded. I'd put it myself on several PowerBooks and a Dell notebook before, but did all the usual struggling to get it up to a desktop experience equivalent to XP or OS X. I thought "Hey, great, it's pre-loaded, so everything's going to work out of the box!"
Wrong.
WiFi simply didn't work until I installed the WiFi Radar package, as I've had to do with Ubuntu on any other machine. I've got a 15.x" widescreen LCD, but 1024x768 out of the box. Had to install the 915resolution package, just like I've had to on other boxen in the past.
Most insulting of all, the "Getting Started" poster that came with it was XP-based, advising me to go to the Start menu to get moving. And it came with an Ubuntu CD with a sticker that stated that if I needed support, visit the Ubuntu forums on the web.
All of these things were fixed in less than a couple of hours, but only due to my previous experience (including the increasingly frustrating PowerPC Linux experience--now that Apple has went Intel and Ubuntu PPC has been demoted to "unofficial" status, this is becoming a dead platform).
Don't get me wrong--I love my Kubuntu Dell laptop (I can't stand Gnome, sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop FTW). But I get the feeling that Dell is purposely sabotaging the Linux experience on their own machines.
...I'm quite happy with my Dell Inspiron E1505 "n series."
For $650, I got Ubuntu (although I quickly converted it to my preferred KDE-based Kubuntu), 1 gig-o-ram, a 1.73 Core Duo (low-power Centrino version), an 80 gig hard drive, WiFi, firewire, 4 USB ports, a 15.4" glossy widescreen, 802.11 g/n WiFi, darn good battery life, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive.
Granted, this is not US$199, but I think it's a pretty good deal for what you get. I'm generally a Mac buyer, but I feel like I got something similar to a $1,199 MacBook. Even though I think the MacBook is still a nicer machine--with better industrial design and OS X/iLife--but for $550 less, I've got a not-bad-looking laptop, a great/stable/secure OS, and tons of free apps that rival iLife (i.e., Picasa in place of iPhoto, Amarok instead of iTunes).
My only complaint is that I had to install the 915resolution package to get beyond 1024x768 (which looks horrible on a widescreen, as you might imagine). Why couldn't Dell pre-install this on the machines that need it (integrated graphics)?
Browsing with Firefox, emailing with Thunderbird, and the media keys working with Amarok are some of the niceties that make me think this was the best bang-for-your-buck computer purchase I ever made.
Slashdot Mirror
No need to open a terminal. Alt+F2 to open the "Run Command" window and you can then use tab completion to your heart's content.
Not that it really matters what Sun thinks about their F/OSS filesystem that anyone can download, modify or incorporate into their OS, but they are excited about Apple's adoption of ZFS, and have been contributing resources to the 'ZFS for OS X' project. It was widely rumored that ZFS would at least be an option in the shipping version of Leopard, if not the default filesystem. Someone over at Sun was even crowing about this a few months before Leopard was released.
I'd say Sun looks favorably upon this.
Parallels doesn't run on Power Macs, which are PPC based. :-)
No doubt about that. I'm sure a lot of kids today get into vinyl for the retro/geek chic/"indie cool" factor. Heck, that's *part* of the reason I started buying and collecting vinyl about 15 years ago. (I do like the sound of vinyl vs. CDs/MP3s, but don't want to enter the flamewar of which is "better.") I still buy and enjoy vinyl, but can't deny that I mostly listen to music a) on my Mac mini hooked into my home entertainment center; b) on my iPod; and c) on my car stereo that plays AACs and MP3s on CD-R.
Reading TFA, I see the 15-year-old in question is from the St. Louis, MO, area. No doubt his vinyl fascination has been fueled by having a good record store to shop at like Vintage Vinyl. I posted on the vinyl-vs-CD/MP3 discussion the last time this was on Slashdot, but let me add this time that actually having a good store to go to, that stocks both new and quality used vinyl, adds a lot of fun to being a vinyl aficionado. And, yet again, vinyl never went away and it's never going to. It will only see dips and spikes in popularity.
And these young IT workers have probably seen, memorized and worshiped Office Space. Did they really expect anything different because they're so smart and have their shiny Microsoft certificates?
I've worked IT a long time and recently left the age range mentioned in TFA (18-31), but I've also lived in reality a long time. Getting fat pay, nice working accommodations and other perks can happen for (relatively) inexperienced workers, but it's not the norm. Just like most jobs in the world, you generally have to work your way up to that level.
Yes, I was assuming the original Bondi Blue iMac keyboard was going to be on this list. Damn near worst keyboard I've ever used. They mention it on the first slide, but somehow it didn't make the list.
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Yet you still continue to use Windows?
Agreed, that would be neat, but my personal policy is that if the link goes to tinyurl or snipurl, then I'm just going to pass. No need to get goatse'd.
No. No re-downloading at all. A semi-recent development (with iTunes 7.x and up, I believe) is that you can pull purchased music off on an iPod on to another computer. But there is no re-downloading, no matter how you lost your files.
One doesn't have to be a hardware snob to replace a hard drive in an Apple product. They just have to be reasonably competent and print out the guide for their machine at iFixit.
It seems somebody who is technically inclined (i.e., writing source code for something) would have the skills to follow instructions, use torx screwdrivers and open a case.
In response to the tag "whynotopenbsd," I, for one, would love to see *BSD or Linux make some big inroads to the US government like this. Yes, us slashgeeks know that Open Office, GIMP, etc., can replace big name software.
But in the end, it's a lot easier sell to a different operating system that runs the big name software already. First, let's reduce the reliance on M$ software, then work towards getting F/OSS into big time use. OS X is a nice middleman in between the Evil Empire and software freedom.
No doubt CDs are compressed, and not the ideal format. Especially if you listen to older albums recorded before the CD era; listen to music with a lot of fuzzy-feedback guitar (a lot of the white noise disappears on CD vs. vinyl); and the loudness war has rendered most new CDs (and newly "re-mastered" CDs of older albums) unlistenable.
Still, there are people who supported said stores for years anyhow, myself among them. But mostly I have been going to buy the vinyl version. Others still bought CDs, but the record industry just hasn't kept up for many reasons--the previously mentioned dearth of content, the absolutely crappy compression and clipping on modern CDs, and treating your customers like criminals.
,...but in the states, this is very apparent. Not only do we have big outlets like the Virgin Megastore closing down in big cities, but long-standing "mom-and-pop", independent record stores are not making it. I see this with a lot of my old favorite record stores in the midwest, but also some of my favorite stores from when I lived on the left coast, like Aron's Records, an veritable institution I never thought would close down.
Now, it may be easy to blame "downloading," but ask anyone who supported these record stores for years and there's two main reasons: 1) Lack of compelling content these days; and 2) general lack of trust for the record industry. When the old hippie burnout down the street is afraid to buy a CD because it might "have a virus on it," you know the MAFIAA have shot themselves in the foot. Unfortunately, they continue to find ways to make money, while the artists and record-shop owners are the ones being put out of business.
Kind = iTunes Plus
Or something similar. Just look at the Info panel for an iTunes Plus song vs. one for a regular iTunes purchased track, and create a smart playlist based on the unique identifier.
Mossberg makes some good points. The sad fact is that many of the negative points he brings I blame on Dell, but most uninformed readers will take it as a slight against Linux.
I bought the cheapest Dell laptop with Ubuntu--the Inspiron E1505 "n series." I bought it because I had been waiting for a long time to buy a laptop with Linux pre-loaded. I'd put it myself on several PowerBooks and a Dell notebook before, but did all the usual struggling to get it up to a desktop experience equivalent to XP or OS X. I thought "Hey, great, it's pre-loaded, so everything's going to work out of the box!"
Wrong.
WiFi simply didn't work until I installed the WiFi Radar package, as I've had to do with Ubuntu on any other machine. I've got a 15.x" widescreen LCD, but 1024x768 out of the box. Had to install the 915resolution package, just like I've had to on other boxen in the past.
Most insulting of all, the "Getting Started" poster that came with it was XP-based, advising me to go to the Start menu to get moving. And it came with an Ubuntu CD with a sticker that stated that if I needed support, visit the Ubuntu forums on the web.
All of these things were fixed in less than a couple of hours, but only due to my previous experience (including the increasingly frustrating PowerPC Linux experience--now that Apple has went Intel and Ubuntu PPC has been demoted to "unofficial" status, this is becoming a dead platform).
Don't get me wrong--I love my Kubuntu Dell laptop (I can't stand Gnome, sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop FTW). But I get the feeling that Dell is purposely sabotaging the Linux experience on their own machines.
OMG Ponies!!1!!. That's what more can be said.
According to this, they did raise the issue in 1895 and made an agreement then. The Red Cross has just recently violated said agreement.
...I'm quite happy with my Dell Inspiron E1505 "n series."
For $650, I got Ubuntu (although I quickly converted it to my preferred KDE-based Kubuntu), 1 gig-o-ram, a 1.73 Core Duo (low-power Centrino version), an 80 gig hard drive, WiFi, firewire, 4 USB ports, a 15.4" glossy widescreen, 802.11 g/n WiFi, darn good battery life, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive.
Granted, this is not US$199, but I think it's a pretty good deal for what you get. I'm generally a Mac buyer, but I feel like I got something similar to a $1,199 MacBook. Even though I think the MacBook is still a nicer machine--with better industrial design and OS X/iLife--but for $550 less, I've got a not-bad-looking laptop, a great/stable/secure OS, and tons of free apps that rival iLife (i.e., Picasa in place of iPhoto, Amarok instead of iTunes).
My only complaint is that I had to install the 915resolution package to get beyond 1024x768 (which looks horrible on a widescreen, as you might imagine). Why couldn't Dell pre-install this on the machines that need it (integrated graphics)?
Browsing with Firefox, emailing with Thunderbird, and the media keys working with Amarok are some of the niceties that make me think this was the best bang-for-your-buck computer purchase I ever made.
Shufflepuck!